The Arch of Kerguelen: Voyage to the Islands of Desolation

Why travel to Kerguelen? Well, there's a rock arch. And a failed explorer. And it's difficult to get to. But overwhelmingly, one gets the feeling that the author made this journey because he couldn't think of anything better to do.

Not that that's a bad idea, mind you. But once he's arrived, he doesn't seem particularly interested in either noticing details or passing them on. His historical snippets of earlier explorers are truncated and flimsy. And he seems completely uninterested in the other human beings whom he encounters. Perhaps it's because most of them are scientists.

I betray my interest in natural history by pointing out that every time Jean-Paul Kauffman gets to an interesting fact or description of this most remote of all places on earth, he punts it by either declaring that science has taken the poetry out of nature-- the man has obviously never read Loren Eiseley-- or adds it as an unexplained addendum ("...the meteorite lying amid the ruins is like the dead soul of Port Jeanne d'Arc..." Hey, wait a minute, what meteorite?)

Despite its flaws, or possibly because of them, this book entices you to learn more. One hopes that the next adventurer to Kerguelen arrives with an actual sense of adventure and the descriptive power to pass it on.


Strangely dispassionate and haunted work   June 27, 2001
A reader in Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)
6 out of 9 found this review helpful

I read this book after hearing it recommended on NPR. It was hard when coming to the book to disassociate Kauffmann's incredible and horrible experiences as a hostage in Beirut from my appreciation of the book itself. Every piece of ennui, every flat, sad phrase seemed to take me back to the chair in which he was blindfolded and chained for three years. I think it would be impossible not to attribute some significance to his past, but it is something Kauffmann fails to address in any way at all. (It is mentioned only in passing on the book jacket.)

What we find instead is a troubled man coming to terms with a troubled place. But here his insights aren't very deep. He seems utterly amazed that this place, so far away from anywhere, is still France. This is an glimpse into the Gallic mindset that perhaps only an Englishman could appreciate. He also feels very impressed with being there. He seems to pinch himself a lot. Wow, I am in Kerguelen! Apparently, it's windy.

His attempts at a back story -- his attempts to show why this place has haunted him for so long are unconvincing and rather dull. He includes what history he could find about the place, but, sadly, there isn't so much. For an example of this type of writing at its finest, I would check out Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia and Kevin Patterson's excellent The Water Inbetween. Both of these books come from similar emotional places, but engage the reader in more interesting and varied ways.